Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE There is no published information on the prevalence of malnutrition in Saudi Arabia The objective of this study was to establish the prevalence data
METHODS The prevalence of nutritional indicators in the form of underweight stunting and wasting in a national sample of children younger than 5 years of age was calculated using the new WHO standards as reference Calculations were performed using the corresponding WHO software The prevalence of moderate and severe underweight wasting, and stunting was defined as the proportion of children whose weight for if,e weight for height and height for age were below 2 and 3 standard deviation scores respectively
RESULTS The number of children younger than 5 years of age was 15516 and 50 5% were boys The prevalence of moderate and severe underweight was 6 9% and) 1 3% respectively The prevalence of moderate and severe 44 wasting was 9 8% and 2 9% respectively Finally the prevalence of moderate and severe stunting was 10 9% 4 and 2 8% respectively The prevalence was lower in girls for all indicators Comparison of the prevalence of nutritional indicators in selected countries demonstrates large disparity with an intermediate position for Saudi Arabia
CONCLUSION This report establishes the national prevalence of malnutrition among Saudi children Compared to data from other countries these prevalence rites are still higher thin other countries with less economic resources indicating that more efforts ire needed to improve the nutritional status of children